Barenaked for the Holidays is one of my favorite Christmas albums of all time. It is by turns silly, serious, religious (Jewish and Christian) and secular. It is pro Christmas and anti Christmas and many things in between. There are cheesy instrumentals, impressive a capella rounds and even a Batman joke. It’s everything people love (hate) about BNL.

The disc opens with Jingle Bells. It opens quietly with a somber piano as Steven Page sings the lyrics. It’s quite lovely. After a minute and a half, insanity sets in with a wild continuation, as Steven goes bananas. There’s a drum-only verse and even a verse of Jungle Bells Batman Smells. It encapsulates all of Christmas in just a few minutes.

“Green Christmas” is a poppy, funny anti-Christmas song that’s super catchy. It’s sung by Ed Robertson and is one of his latter style concoctions. I have several versions of this song om various releases. This is my favorite because when the carolers sing and he shuts the door on them you can hear their voices change.

“I Saw Three Ships” is done on a mandolin and sung first by Kevin Hearn. Then a rotating cast of the band joins in.

“Hanukkah Blessing” is a wonderful original song by Steven. It’s incredibly catchy with a nice telling of the Hanukkah story. It even has a verse in Hebrew.

“O Holy Night” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” are done in a kind of ice rink keyboard–cheesey but a lot of fun cheesey.

I sort of like “Elf’s Lament” because it’s pretty funny, but it’s really rather dark–maybe too dark? I don’t think I ever realized that the voice I don’t recognize i Michael Bublé, which is pretty insane.

“Snowman” is an original song about how much of a bummer it is being a snowman.

“Do They Know Its Christmas?” I hate the original of this song but I do like this version which takes some of the schmaltz and cheese out of it. I also like that they mock “thank god it’s them instead do of you!”

“God rest Ye Merry Gentlemen/We Three Kings” was recorded in 1996 with Sarah McLachlan. It’s quite nice but feels out of place–like they should have re-recorded it.

“Carol of the Bells” is a trippy synth version with lots of voice-sounds from Steven.

“Footprints” is a slower Ed song–pretty and kind of somber.

“Deck the Stills” is just a genius version of “Deck the Halls.” How did they every figure out that you could perfectly fit the words “Crosby Stills Nash and Young” into that musical pattern? I’d love to hear the process for making this one.

“Christmas Time (Oh Yeah)” This is a Kevin song which means its sweet and kind of quiet, but there’s also some wonderful backing vocals (oooohhh yeah).

“Sleigh Ride” is zany scatting version that lasts less than a minute.

“Christmas Pics” is a Jim song with lots of upright bass. It’s a typically funny and sweet song by Jim.

“I Have a Little Dreidel” is a little goofy sounding on banjo–it seems more hoe-down than Jewish. But it’s a hoot.

“Wonderful Christmastime” is an instrumental with drum machine and keys but a very funny wah-wah type of keyboard sound that sort of mocks the original. It ends with them singing happy birthday to Jesus.

“Auld Lang Syne: ends the disc. It’s a beautiful version with great harmonies, really showcasing that this is a great band who likes to have fun too.

[READ: December 13, 2018] “Every One of My Answers was a Disappointment”

Once again, I have ordered The Short Story Advent Calendar. This is my third time reading the Calendar (thanks S.). I never knew about the first one until it was long out of print (sigh). Here’s what they say this year

Fourth time’s the charm.

After a restful spring, rowdy summer, and pretty reasonable fall, we are officially back at it again with another deluxe box set of 24 individually bound short stories to get you into the yuletide spirit.

The fourth annual Short Story Advent Calendar might be our most ambitious yet, with a range of stories hailing from eight different countries and three different originating languages (don’t worry, we got the English versions). This year’s edition features a special diecut lid and textured case. We also set a new personal best for material that has never before appeared in print.

Like last year I’m pairing each story with a holiday disc from our personal collection.

This is the story of an artist, Amelia, who has flown from Vancouver to Toronto to live for a few months. She was almost forty, recently separated and had just had a major art showing (she sold everything and was basically set for a long time). She sublets a place from her younger brother’s best friend Sab–neither her brother nor Sab knew about the separation. (more…)